Today Rep. Eliot Engel (D-New York), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, published a pugnacious letter in The Hill, a daily newspaper targeted at the U.S. Congress. Engel defends the October 30 defense cooperation agreement (DCA) that gives U.S. military personnel access to seven bases in Colombian territory.
Colombia is an important friend and ally, and the U.S.-Colombia DCA strengthens the already excellent partnership between our countries. In spite of reports to the contrary, this bilateral agreement simply regularizes existing security cooperation between the United States and Colombia. It envisions no permanent U.S. bases or increased military deployments.
Rep. Engel criticizes Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for using the DCA as a pretext to launch a campaign of warlike rhetoric and provocations that is increasing the risk of cross-border hostilities.
But Chávez is not the only one criticizing the DCA; he is just the loudest. Just last week the presidents of Brazil and Argentina issued a joint statement expressing strong displeasure with the U.S.-Colombian base access deal.
Both Presidents expressed their concern for the presence in the region of a military base of an extra-regional power, a situation that is incompatible with the principles of respect, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the region’s states.
The U.S. government has published a very brief fact sheet (PDF) about the bases, and Ambassador William Brownfield has given interviews to Colombian media assuring other nations that they need not view the U.S. presence as a threat. This, unsurprisingly, has not been enough to reassure them.
When we look beyond the Venezuelan bluster, we see that this bilateral, vaguely worded, until recently very secretive agreement is still doing damage to U.S. relations with nearly all of Latin America. It is undermining trust with governments who should be partners, and spreading a view that the Obama administration, despite the hope of early 2009, is turning out to be “more of the same.”
Washington needs to halt this damage. A common proposal from the region is simply to abrogate the agreement, as center-left politicians like Polo Democrático candidate Gustavo Petro have proposed. However, the situation with Venezuela has made this politically inviable because of the perception that a U.S. pullout would be viewed as a capitulation to Chávez.
Instead, the United States must adopt a new posture of humility, clarity and transparency. The Obama administration should start by recognizing that the base-access deal was presented through a process that was deeply flawed. It should finish by being clearer on three issues that the CDA’s vague text, and the administration’s own actions, leave insufficiently defined.
1. The United States must be clearer with Colombia’s neighbors that its presence in Colombia will never support any operations beyond Colombian soil. The CDA says the following on this topic:
Article III, Section 4: The Parties shall comply with their obligations under this Agreement in a manner consistent with the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity of States, and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States.
In his November 1 interview with El Tiempo, Amb. Brownfield repeatedly referenced this section, “like a mantra,” to assure that “this is not an agreement with extraterritorial impact.” However, in a region still jolted by the March 2008 cross-border raid into Ecuador that killed a FARC commander, this language is not clear enough. The agreement’s negotiators chose not to use language as unequivocal as “U.S. personnel in Colombia will not support operations that occur in the territory of third countries without those countries’ explicit permission.”
Amb. Brownfield’s message was severely undercut by the Colombian media’s almost simultaneous discovery of a May 2009 U.S. Air Force presentation to the U.S. Congress (PDF), which contends that the presence in Colombia would provide “a unique opportunity for full spectrum operations in a critical sub region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies, anti-US governments, endemic poverty and recurring natural disasters.” (Our emphasis.)
As a result, last week’s joint statement from the presidents of Brazil and Argentina continues to demand clearer assurances.
[Both Presidents] highlighted the importance that military cooperation agreements signed by countries in the region, especially those that imply some degree of military presence of extra-regional nations in South America, must be accompanied by formal guarantees that such accords will not be utilized against the sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and stability of South American countries.
It is essential that the U.S. government accede to this request by making these assurances explicitly, through diplomatic notes or similar means.
2. The United States must be clearer about the commitment that this agreement implies for Colombia’s national defense. U.S. foreign aid law restricts U.S. assistance to Colombia to “a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking and organizations designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and successor organizations, and to take actions to protect human health and welfare in emergency circumstances.”
The CDA, however, would support a far broader, vaguer mission. Article III, Section 1 allows U.S. forces to support activities “to address common threats to peace, stability, freedom, and democracy.”
This language may not be a mutual defense guarantee, but it sounds a lot like one. It is not as explicit as the North Atlantic Treaty, in which “an armed attack against one or more … shall be considered an attack against them all.” Still, the CDA could be construed as implying that hostilities from a nation viewed as a “common threat” would be met with a U.S. military response.
Has Colombia, to the exclusion of other South American countries, just been brought under the U.S. defense umbrella, like South Korea? The answer is unclear. But while it remains unclear, it will generate distrust and tensions throughout South America, especially larger countries like Brazil.
3. The United States must be clearer about its desire to see the Colombia-Venezuela tensions resolved peacefully. An armed confrontation is in nobody’s interest. Because its handling of the CDA is a proximate cause of the current Andean blowup, the United States has a responsibility to help cool things down. An impression that the Obama administration expects to stand aside – or worse, that it is aggressively taking Colombia’s side – will only inflame the situation further.
Obviously, the United States has taken Colombia’s side. This makes it impossible for the Obama administration to play the role of a disinterested “honest broker” in resolving tensions. But just as pro-Israel U.S. governments repeatedly seek to mediate peace in the middle east, the U.S. government should be actively supporting efforts to build dialogue, and multilateral confidence-building processes led by regional moderates. These include the UNASUR talks taking place later this week. These offer at least modest hope of reducing tensions, and thus deserve Washington’s full support.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
The fact that the U.S. entered into this base agreement at all, and especially the way that it did, is a prime example of how disconnected Washington is vis-a-vis the region. Or maybe how indifferent Washington is to policy in the region, where the U.S. has historically dictated the terms of engagement.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Oh dear! How I wish that Adam’s proposal were enough. I think it is a good idea and should be tried. But I very much doubt that with words on a piece of paper, no matter how tight the language, you can prevent the mess that awaits. The fact is that with American aircrafts and personnel in Colombia we will always have fertile ground for cross-border incidents, real or fabricated. What will happen if one day there is an attack from the FARC (or from some fake “FARC” column created by, say, the CIA) against American personnel and originating in Venezuela?
I think there is one element missing here: like him or not, Chavez feels threatened by the US and anyone with any knowledge of the history of the region understands why. If I were him, I would feel threatened, let’s not kid ourselves. So, the “honest broker” parallel of US-Israel-Palestine is somehow wrongheaded. A better parallel is US-Israel-Syria and there it is understood that the US-Syria angle is one inter-state conflict on its own. So, I conclude that the US should also assuage Venezuela. It may not help much, but the Obama administration should state in no uncertain terms that it recognizes Venezuela’s constitution (yes, written by a Chavista assembly) as the law of the land, that it has no interest whatsoever in forcible regime change, that it will do everything in its power to discourage Venezuelan elements from attempting to destabilize and overthrow the government, and so on and so forth. It might not be enough, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t help. C’mon, it should come naturally to the Obama administration. I’m pretty sure that, at least among the highest-ranking officers this is already official policy (I don’t know if the Otto Reichs of the world left planted some undesirables in the middle-ranking staff from the Bush administration where Obama hasn’t found them). Then, why not stating it again with a little show of respect?
Yes, I know, John Bolton, that recognized expert in Latin America, will show up on Fox calling this an abject capitulation. But that’s about as much as I can think of on the cost side of this. And these days the Obama administration has a lot more to be concerned about than the war-criminals-turned-zombie-hacks that the Republican noise machine insists on keeping alive.
For the record, the optimal solution, instead of all this sugar-coating would be to simply annul the whole bases deal. It is a sad comment on US power that, according to Adam’s analysis, the US cannot take the sensible policy for fear of being seen as “too weak” the same reasoning that is keeping the US from doing the right thing in Afghanistan: find a smooth way to get the hell out of there. Apparently this whole superpower thing isn’t all its cracked up to be.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:58 am
You make some excellent points, IFM. We have a saying in Spanish, one that President Chávez might ponder: “A fish dies by its mouth.†Some of Chávez’s outrageous comments, like those recently in which he lauds ‘Carlos the Jackal,’ Robert Mugabe, Mahmoud Ahmnadinejad, and Idi Amin, hardly endear him to the international community. Or to others in Latin America.
But Washington should be big enough to place this in perspective. What bothers some of us in the region is that Washington policymakers too often base policy on these outlandish sound bites. In a petulant Washington way, they take them for substance and twist them into something they’re not. Let’s face it: Congressman Engel knows Colombia, or Venezuela, or Latin America, like he knows the dark side of the moon. And at this point in the Obama presidency, a presidency that gave some of us here a lot of hope only a few months ago, there’s little evidence that those guiding Latin policy know much more. I say ‘evidence,’ because at least some of them may know more, yet because of personal career agendas, or the administration’s political agendas (the two closely link), lack the spine to say what they know. Instead, silence reigns. Housecarls like these are useless as far as developing a foreign policy that in the long term best serves the interests of the United States or of the region. The latter two are also increasingly linked.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:56 am
might want to view the updated milcon jbook entry regarding the DCA…the “anti-govts” language is removed. published 16 Nov
http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-091110-029.pdf
November 26th, 2009 at 1:44 am
The rest of the region doesn’t care one bit about Colombia, to say the least, nor does it ever offer any effective aid as far as security and counter-insurgency goes.
They have no moral standing from which to complain about this agreement unless they’re willing to do something practical in order to replace or supercede it.
If the rest of the region had ever cooperated with Colombia, not only would we not have this agreement, the March 2008 raid probably wouldn’t have happened either, among other things that could be easily extrapolated.
I really don’t care what you think, in the end, but whatever happens to Uribe I hope whoever comes next isn’t dumb enough to give up something in exchange for nothing, which is what most of you gentlemen want.
But of course….I forgot that only Venezuela’s Chávez is allowed to be paranoid, to insult people and to sign all kinds of military agreements or weapon purchases. Colombia has no reason to do anything other than because it’s the evil thing to do, no?
Regards,
Marcos
November 27th, 2009 at 12:55 am
There is a long tradition in Latin America that countries deal with their internal security problems on their own. The only breach of that tradition that comes to mind is the infamous “Operation Condor” when the military regimes of the Southern Cone coordinated their murderous activities. I’m not sure we want to repeat that. So the dominant situation so far, where the rest of the region “doesn’t care one bit about Colombia” is just standard operating procedure. Colombia has kept its part by not offering any kind of help to any other country’s counterinsurgency either and not for lack of insurgencies.
There is another long tradition in the region which is that, instead of asking help from our neighbors we ask it from the US, often after engaging in serious threat inflation. That way the Salvadoran right-wing thugs convinced the Reagan administration that the FMLN would overrun El Salvador, then Mexico, then Texas, then New York. In that sense, the Uribe administration is just following a well-known script. The difference is that this time around Colombia is making its guest a bit too cozy and possibly allowing it to project its influence in neighboring countries. That is the unprecedented step. I’m sure that many governments in Latin America were displeased by Plan Colombia but felt that it had to be accepted as business as usual. But this deal goes too far. So, from their point of view, “moral standing- schmoral schtanding.” They feel compelled to complain and no, it is not their responsibility to offer a replacement military package. It is Colombia’s responsibility to assure them that whatever it is doing is not a major departure from the tacit security understandings that have prevailed so far.
Oh, I typed this far and only now realize that Marcos doesn’t care what we think so probably I should have reciprocated and ignored his comments. I’ll make a mental note to self next time about that.
November 27th, 2009 at 1:59 am
lfm. Interestingly finely crafted comments you post today. Makes one wonder why on earth other people prefer to rather keep on hiding their heads in the sand. Way to go!
November 27th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Except that in this case the presence of guerrillas and others is not exclusively restricted to Colombian soil, which makes a difference, so one would think real cooperation would be in the best interests of anyone willing to coordinate actions in good faith.
Now, the DCA agreement only “goes too far” because people say it will. I don’t think that has been proven. Even if you assume that there is an implicit defensive guarantee or whatever else you want to call it, I don’t see how that’s a threat to the region at large.
Perhaps I still need to eat up the words and works of “anti-imperalistic gladiators” such as a certain celebrity or perhaps the visiting Iranian next door, because there isn’t any solid reason to think so beyond citing history out of context and playing to the gallery. Even in Colombia many people have grown up to be disgustingly anti-U.S. in very hypocritical and ultimately ridiculous ways that, what do you know, usually end up leading to nothing later in life.
But it would be nice to cite some other bits and pieces of history too, such as how it can be very difficult to isolate and defeat a guerrilla that can run across the border to find sympathy, aid or tolerance. That’s not exactly an unknown factor historically speaking.
And yeah, I don’t mind being ignored. Or it’s more like I’ve already assumed it to be the case. What’s fair is fair. Nobody cares about anyone else who has a totally different opinion, really, so why bother caring? I’m at least being honest with you there, boring as it is.
Regards,
Marcos
November 28th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
[...] and consultation, especially with larger states like Brazil and Mexico. That goodwill – already drained by the administration’s handling of its military agreement with Colombia – will all but [...]